


Starting Over (Again)

by bluesky_daydreaming



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ENDGAME, F/M, I fixed Steve's ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18639523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesky_daydreaming/pseuds/bluesky_daydreaming
Summary: “Hey, punk.” Bucky smiles when Steve finds him again, after the dust has settled.Steve just hugs him, holds him the way he should have after Azzano, on the train in ‘44, in Wakanda 5 years ago.If Bucky notices the tears seeping into the jacket he’s wearing, then he doesn’t say anything.





	Starting Over (Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, Endgame destroyed my heart over and over and I can only fix one thing at a time because I'm that dang hurt. 
> 
> This is my first work for any of the Marvel movies and I am highkey really nervous. 
> 
> I know it's short, but I worked off memory alone here, and adding any more detail would have made me cry 10 more times.

“Steve?”

Something about the tone of Bucky’s voice makes Steve’s heart drop, it’s the tone he used when Steve was sick, the tone he used when money was short. When he turns around, he can’t breathe because Bucky is _fading away_.

He kneels on the ground, the ground where Bucky should be standing, and he can’t breathe. The others start to fade away, too. Sam, T’Challa, Wanda, all gone.

“Oh, god.” Steve sighs, looking up at Natasha from his spot on the ground, her face covered in dirt from the battle and shock from what has just happened around them.

They can’t stand around forever, surrounded by the ashes of the people they love.  The world keeps turning. Steve stands, loops an arm around Natasha, and makes his way toward the capital of Wakanda, feeling more numb than he had in the ice.

\----

They go home, those of them who are left, and they try and set things right in the world, but half the population really is gone. Half of _everything_ is gone. People don’t know what to do. Governments are in shambles, and everyone is looking to the Avengers for answers.

Steve gives a blanket statement to the press.

“It was a threat like we had never seen before.” He says ( _Tony warned us,_ he thinks.), “And he won. For that, I am sorry, but we have to keep going, we have to move on, or we fought for nothing. Don’t allow Thanos that satisfaction.”

Steve’s days consist of cleaning up the devastation from the snap. It wasn’t just the people who vanished that died. In the wake of the snap, cars were left without drivers, with no one to stop them from piling up around the cars of those who survived the snap.

Each body he sees is another reminder that not only could he not save Bucky, Steve failed to save _anyone._

Steve’s nights are long, most of the time filled with nightmares, old and new. Bucky falling. Tony killing him. Thanos’ laughing, relishing in the destruction he created.

23 days pass in an exhaustive blur.

When the compound starts shaking, Steve is prepared for a fight.

What he gets, instead, is Tony Stark and an alien girl named Nebula.

 _“I lost the kid.”_ Tony says as Steve helps him off the ship, and Steve’s chest aches. He hadn’t even spared a thought to the Spider-Man who had fought so bravely to the airport in Berlin. Another name to add to an ever growing list.

Pepper hugs Tony, and Steve can’t help but notice that her arms could almost wrap around him twice for how thin Tony is.

He pushes down the selfish part of him that is jealous that they still have each other.

When he pushes Tony too hard, too fast, for details about the battle he had with Thanos, he doesn’t blame him for snapping, for throwing Siberia in his face, because Tony is right.

Steve never had cause to regret what he did. It brought Bucky back to him. But he does regret lying to Tony about it, for betraying a man that he called a friend.

Tony’s words don’t stop Steve from reaching out for him when the exhaustion makes him collapse.

\----

Carol Danvers is a lot to take in. Steve respects her for wanting to take Thanos out, for believing so truly that she could change the tide of the war.

But he agrees with Rhodey, too. Why should they believe that with her they will win?

He gets on the ship anyway, when Nebula shows them where Thanos will be.

 _“This is gonna work, Steve.”_ Natasha says as Steve stares down at Peggy’s picture in his compass.

 _“I know it is, because I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t.”_ He snaps it closed, pushing away the memories of a life he already lost.

Thor cuts Thanos’ arm off with ease, Carol restraining him with the help of Rhodey, but the stones are gone. Really, truly gone, as Thanos confirms.

 _“My father is many things, but a liar is not one of them.”_ At Nebula’s words, Thor swings, and Steve can’t even blame him.

It didn’t work.

Steve stares at the fallen head of the titan, and thinks that he died easier than he deserved. He should have been forced to lose all that he loved, too. He should have suffered at least a fraction of what they had.

\----

Five years pass much the same as the first 23 days.

Steve starts leading group therapy sessions, trying to help the people devastated by the losses they have all faced. It’s what Sam would have done. Sam would have stuck his chin up and said, _“Now, we make do with what we have.”_

Bucky might have been proud of him for it, too, because Bucky and Sam were a lot alike, even if their pride would never allow them to admit it.

People flock to him like moths to a flame, and it makes Steve feel a little better. He can still do this. He can still work, he can still help.

A man talks about going on a date. He says that is was hard, that his date cried before they even finished their salads. He openly shares that the date was with another man, the shame in his story only for the fact that he struggled to make conversation, and Steve’s heart lurches because he had finally been able to openly be with his best friend in the way he’d always longed to only to have to ripped away.

He says something about Peggy, because it’s easier to talk about her now. She would have been the love of his life. He would have married her, then, because as much as he loved Bucky, he could have loved Peggy, too. Could have been happy.

Both of them are gone now, though.

He urges the group to move on. To keep going, because that’s all that they can do.

Steve doesn’t mention that for all his insistence, he isn’t moving on. Hasn’t even begun to.

\----

Natasha runs communications in the old Avengers compound, still. She’s finishing up a conversation with Rhodey when he comes in, her eyes glassy.

“I’d offer to make you dinner, but you already look pretty miserable.” Steve jokes, smiling at her softly.

Natasha huffs out a watery laugh.

She has been a rock over the years. Her presence soothing because Steve know that she hasn’t moved on, either.

She tells Steve about her past, about how Clint finding her finally allowed her to find the family she’d always needed. She tells him she was better for having allowed herself to love the people on their team.

Tells him that she’s still trying to be better, because she owes it to them.

Steve loves her, doesn’t know what he’d do without her.

“I keep telling everyone to move on.” He says, “And some do, but not us. Not us.”

Natasha sighs, and swipes away a communications notification, but the footage plays on the holoscreen anyway.

Scott Lang.

“Is this old footage?”

“It’s.. the front gate.”

Scott is every bit as overwhelming when he sets foot in the compound as he was when Steve met him in Berlin. He speaks a million miles hour, explaining the Quantum Realm, and idea for time travel.

 _That might work,_ Steve thinks, but it means seeking out Tony.

\----

The little girl is cute, the perfect blend of Pepper and Tony. Steve had known they had a child, but he hadn’t seen her. He’s happy for him, Tony finally found a way out, finally found his peace.

They explain the plan anyway, and Steve feels guilty for even asking Tony to leave behind what he’s found.

Tony calls them crazy. Says it will never work. Morgan comes out to ‘save him’, and Steve understands. Tony deserves what he has.

He, Natasha, and Scott leave, to find a ‘bigger brain’.

\----

Bruce is much happier, now, even in the wake of the snap. Uniting his consciousness with the Hulk’s has brought him his own kind of peace. He smiles more, lets Natasha see more of him, now. Looks at her adoringly and openly.

Bruce agrees to try and make time travel work, even though he himself is skeptical.

It doesn’t take very long for Scott and Bruce to come up with a theoretical way to travel through time.

It fails, several times in a row, and Steve once again feels helpless to reverse the damage Thanos caused.

But then, and really Steve should never have doubted him, Tony shows back up.

“I figured it out.” He says, and then he gives Steve the shield back, and it’s an olive branch.

Tony manages to build the machines that will take them back in time and bring them back to the present - wrist bands and a larger machine. Natasha tracks down Clint. (Steve doesn’t how, just trusts that Natasha knows what she’s doing and welcomes Clint along for the ride.)

Clint volunteers for the test run, and comes back what is only 10 seconds later for them, looking haunted and holding an old baseball glove. “It works.” He says, and Steve allows himself to hope again, just a little.

\----

They split into teams. Steve, Scott, Tony, and Bruce to get the three stones in New York, 2012. Space, time, and mind.

Clint and Natasha to get the soul stone from Vormir.

Nebula and Rhodey to get the power stone before Peter Quill.

Thor and Rocket to get the reality stone - the ether - from Asgard.

Seeing New York in 2012 again is a rollercoaster.

Tony goes for the Tesseract.

Bruce for the time stone.

Steve for the mind.

Seeing Rumlow makes Steve sick to his stomach, every bone in his body screaming for him to kill him now before he can get his hands on Bucky. To get the elevator fight over now.

But it wouldn’t change anything.

So, he lies, smiles in his face, whispers _“Hail Hydra,”_ to Sitwell, and takes the case with Loki’s scepter as fast as they hand it to him.

Tony and Scott encounter an issue, relaying Loki’s escape to him through the comms.

“I have eyes on Loki.” Says his past self, and Steve cringes.

Past-Steve attacks, refusing to listen to anything now-Steve says.

“I could do this all day.”

Steve refuses to roll his eyes, “Yeah, I know.”

Past-Steve pins him down, trapping him a way eerily similar to the way he did Bucky aboard the helicarriers.

“Bucky. Is. Alive.” Steve grounds out, and his past self loosens his grip, just like he knew it would because Steve felt more alone in 2012, longed for Bucky more than ever, than he had the day Bucky fell of that train.

“What did you say?”

Steve snatches up the scepter and uses it, running out to find Tony and Scott.

\----

Tony’s idea is nuts, but it’s the only one they have.

“You trust me?” Tony asks.

“I do.” Steve replies, _I never stopped._  

They split up at the military base, the sight of it taking Steve back 70 (30?) years, like an evil form of deja vu.

Getting Hank Pym out of his office is almost laughably easy, and stealing the particles they need to get back home even more so.

But ducking in that office and seeing Peggy through the glass, and walking out again, is one of hardest things Steve has ever done.

He signals to Tony when he sees him outside, trying to tell him wordlessly that they need to hurry.

He recognizes Howard Stark and tries to be patient, even though his heart is screaming for him to go find Peggy, to ask her what he should do.

\----

Clint tells them that Natasha is gone, and Steve realizes that he has absolutely nothing left to lose.

She sacrificed herself for this mission, and Steve will make it count if it is the last thing he does.

His resolve does nothing to stop the aching in his chest, mourning the loss of his last real friend.  

There isn’t even time for a real funeral, not a body to bury, not a family to invite.

\----

When Bruce snaps, Steve almost allows himself to believe that they have won. Almost.

Because the compound explodes, and the next thing Steve knows Tony is nudging him with his foot and telling him to get up.

It’s Thanos, because of course it is, and he’s just sitting there.

Thor snaps out of whatever dazed funk he had been in, and launches himself at the titan, Steve and Tony hot on his heels.

For a minute, it almost seems as though the three of them might defeat him. Then he sends Tony flying, and Steve rolling the opposite direction.

Thanos is pressing Thor’s ax into its owners chest, and for the first time since that night in the Avengers tower, Steve calls out to the hammer.

It slams into Thanos, knocking him back, and Steve’s anger pushes him forward.

Between the hammer, his shield, Thor, and the ax, they distract Thanos for a precious few moments.

Steve misses a hit, maybe it was Thor, but regardless Thanos’ blade comes down on Steve’s shield and makes a crack in the vibranium.

And it keeps cracking until all Steve is holding is a jagged half of the shield that has protected him for so long.

Thanos stops, and Steve makes peace with the fact that he is about to die.

“What I’m about to do to your planet? I am going to enjoy.”

Steve stands as the army congregates behind Thanos, panting with six words on the tip of his tongue.

His comms start to crackle.

“.....-eve? Cap? Cap, do you read me?” Steve’s eyes go wide, “On your left.” _Sam._

Steve watches, in awe, as portals open all around him. The fallen are returning all around him, and pretty soon they have their own army to rival Thanos’.

“Avengers!” He calls, “Assemble!” And the battle begins.

It’s mostly a blur of swinging and scrambling and keeping the gauntlet away from Thanos, but Steve sees Peter Parker swinging through the fray.

Spots a blue Iron Man suit, hears Pepper in it through the comms.

Sees Bucky briefly and feels his heart stutter.

The stones have to go back, he realizes, and Bruce voices it aloud.

But of course Thanos had blown up the time machine.

“It’s not the only one! Does anyone see an ugly brown van?” Scott calls, and Valkyrie spots it first.  

Steve hears Scott mumbling about jumping off the van through the comms, but drowns it out in favor of beating back the crowd.

Peter snatches the gauntlet when someone else throws it, and Steve shouts something that the kid understands, because he attaches himself to Mjolnir when it flies by him.  

In the end, he makes his way to the van as it explodes.

Watches the struggle for the gauntlet, tries to help pull it from Thanos.

In the end, somehow Tony gets it.

“And I,” Tony growls, “am Iron Man.” And then he snaps.

As the shock rocks through Tony, Steve realizes what is about to happen to him, and it makes him ache in a way he didn’t think it would.

This was Tony laying down on the wire for them all over again, and he suddenly wishes beyond anything else he could apologize for misjudging him all those years ago.

Peter is distraught, and Rhodey has to pull him back.

“We’re okay.” Pepper whispers, “You can rest now.”

And that’s the end.

\----

“Hey, punk.” Bucky smiles when Steve finds him again, after the dust has settled and Pepper has taken Tony’s body away.

Steve just hugs him, holds him the way he should have after Azzano, on the train in ‘44, in Wakanda 5 years ago.

If Bucky notices the tears seeping into the jacket he’s wearing, he doesn’t say anything.

\----

After the funeral, Bruce asks Steve to take the stones back to when they were taken.

“It’s okay, you know.” Bucky says after Steve agrees to do it, “If you want to stay with her, live the life the two of you would have had.”

Steve refuses to cry again, just hugs his best friend. “I’ll make my own peace, and then I’ll come home.” He tells him, and Bucky nods like he understands, but somehow Steve thinks he doesn’t, not really.

\----

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

Bucky smirks, “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck.”

Bucky’s eyes look sad, “I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”

Steve hugs him again, because even now his heart aches at the thought of leaving Bucky for even a moment.

\----

He returns the tesseract last, and his time he seeks Peggy out.

She looks devastated when she sees him, a flurry of emotions crossing her beautiful face before she just hugs him.

She demands an explanation the moment she lets him go, and Steve explains it as best he can without totally destroying reality.

“Bucky is alive.” He says, at the end, “But… if I choose to stay we could finally get that dance.” His eyes are filling up again, “I don’t know what to do.”

Peggy rolls her eyes. “I do.” She says, turning on old song from a record player, “You’re going to dance with me now, because you owe me, and then you’re going to go home to your boy.” Her eyes harden, “You leave here and you move on, because sometimes the best we can do is start over.”

\----

When Steve returns, Sam, Bruce, and Bucky are all waiting exactly as they were when he left.

Bucky smiles at him, and Sam steps up on the platform to hug him.

When they break apart, Steve leads Sam over to the lake, a new shield hanging in a bag by his side (courtesy of a pitstop on his way home).

“I want you to have it.” Steve says, and Sam furrows his brow. Steve glances back where Bucky is waiting with Bruce, “I think I’m gonna try some of this ‘living life’ Tony kept telling me about.

Sam takes the shield, putting it on his own arm when Steve motions for him to.

“How does it feel?”

“Like it belongs to someone else.”

“It doesn’t.” Steve smiles, “You’ll do great, Sam. And I’ll only ever be a phone call away.”

\----

Later, much later, when he curls closer to Bucky, Steve realizes that he should have taken his own advice much sooner.

Moving on means leaving the war behind.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this. I might do another one (or two) to fix Natasha and Tony's endings because they deserved so much better, but this came to me first. 
> 
> Let me know how much Endgame broke your heart and what you thought of this fic. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
